The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760-1800

by R.R. Palmer

Palmer's most important work of historical scholarship is The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe & America 1760-1800. Published in 2 volumes: The Challenge ('59) which won the Bancroft Prize in History & The Struggle ('64). This masterwork traced the growth of two competing forces--ideas of democracy & equality, on one hand, & the growing power of aristocracies in society, on the other--& the extraordinary results of the collision between these forces, including both the American & French Revolutions. The book foreshadowed the development in the 1990s & early 2000s of ideas of Atlantic history & global history, & remains to this day a valuable resource for scholars. In 1971 he published a slightly revised & condensed version of the 2nd volume as The World of the French Revolution.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, Philosophy

Paperback

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

Robert Roswell Palmer (January 11, 1909 – June 11, 2002), commonly known as R. R. Palmer, was a distinguished American historian at Princeton and Yale universities, who specialized in eighteenth-century France. His most influential work of scholarship, The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760–1800 (1959 and 1964), examined an age of democratic revolution that swept the Atlantic civilization between 1760 and 1800. He was awarded the Bancroft Prize in History for the first volume. Palmer also achieved distinction as a history text writer.

Reviews

[Erik Graff · Rating 5 out of 5]

We used Palmer's history of Europe as our text in Tim Little's high school European History A.P. class, so I was excited to find a copy of his magnum opus available and finally got down to read the thing when not burdened by school assignments.

Palmer's two volume book is an attempt to globally picture the revolutionary currents which swept Europe and the Americas in the last four decades of the eighteenth century. It is not just about the revolutions in North America and in France, but it does concentrate on them.

[Turgut · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heavily emphasizes French revolution, almost to the point of exclusion of all others, but still worth it.

[Annabelle Bragdon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone’s overthrowing something, nobody’s calm, and somehow France is always the problem!